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Some Thoughts On One-Design Racing

posted Nov 9, 2014, 10:10 AM by Deb Aronson

This is a story I wrote several years ago for Outdoor Illinois, but I thought it might help encourage non-racers to consider racing, and so I'm posting it here! Keep in mind, the story was for an Illinois-wide publication, which is why I highlight some other lakes, as well as our own...

Sailing:
Another way to enjoy Illinois lakes

“Stuart was an
adventurous little fellow and loved the feel of the breeze in his face and the
cry of the gulls overhead and the heave of the great swell under him … ‘This is the life for me!’ Stuart
murmured to himself. “What a ship! What a day! What a race!” (from Stuart Little by E.B. White)

From Horatio
Hornblower to Pirates of the
Caribbean, sailing has always held a certain romance; with no engine, the
sailor becomes adept at sailing in every kind of condition, from light to heavy
wind, from smooth to choppy water, and, ultimately, to master or harness Mother
Nature in all her moods.

To the landlubber this might be an unrequited
romance; sailing looks complex and mysterious, something they cannot
master. But in reality, the
fundamentals are fairly simple. To turn the boat to the right, push the tiller
to the left; to turn the boat to the left, push the tiller to the right. To stop, turn the boat directly into
the wind and let the sails go. An adult can learn the basics in a single
lesson, but to improve after that it’s like the punch line to the Carnegie Hall
joke: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.”

The best way to get that practice is to join a
sailing club and take part in the informal races that are held weekly. There
are many active sailing clubs in Illinois beyond Lake Michigan. For example,
there are clubs on Carlyle, Clinton and Springfield lakes, as well as on a bend
of the Mississippi River known as Alton Lake. Many local clubs run their races
either on Wednesday nights or Saturday mornings. This is not high-pressure or
high-stakes racing: in this setting racing simply means — in the beginning
anyway — sailing around a specific course marked by brightly colored buoys. By
going around the course, novice sailors improve their steering and learn the
racing rules; by sailing in all kinds of conditions they learn how to handle
their boats; by doing it in a club racing setting, there are more experienced
sailors right there to both teach them and to bail them out (pun intended) if
the need should arise.

“There is a lot of collegiality in racing,” says
Mike Pick, of the Island Bay Yacht Club on Lake Springfield. “Everyone wants
everyone else to improve. They all want to help you out and are more than happy
to answer any questions.”

At most clubs sailors get together informally before
and after racing to talk about what worked well out on the racecourse and what
they learned.

“Why would a non-competitive person race?” says
Nelson Laffey, who learned to sail in his 50s. “First of all, you are more
likely to spend time learning on purpose than if you are just sailing around.
For example, if you have two identical boats of the same one-design class and
the other is passing you by, then you look at your sails and adjust them, you
can even ask the other guy where his centerboard is. You try different things.
On the other hand, if you are passing the other boat, then you know you are
doing some things right!”

Pick learned how to sail as a child, but it was only
in the last six or seven years that he began racing.

“People who know how to sail are intimidated by
racing,” he says. “But competing added a lot more fun to the sport for me. It’s
so much more fun than cruising around and letting the wind take you. In racing,
the boat becomes part of you and sailing it is automatic. That means you can
then pay attention to tactics and the wind conditions.”

As Laffey explained, the best kind of racing is
one-design, which simply means everyone uses an identical kind of sailboat, as
opposed to having many types of boats and using a handicapping system. This
head-to-head competition is the best way for sailors to learn what techniques
help them go the fastest in which conditions

There
is a boat for every age and activity level. Some take just one person to sail,
like the Sunfish and the Laser. Some take as many as four or five. Some have
spinnakers, those enormous, colorful parachute-like sails that are so
photogenic. There are larger boats that take two or three people, like the
Lightning and the Flying Scot, both of which have spinnakers. There are other
boats that are the same size but that don’t have spinnakers, such as the JY 15
and the C Scow. Then there are boats that need even more crew, such as the E
Scow, which is 28 feet long and has three or four sailors on board.

One
of the best places to race sailboats in Illinois is at Carlyle Lake, in
Carlyle, Ill. The club there, which was established in 1971, is a nationally
renowned facility with a very active racing program. At Carlyle there are
one-design fleets of Lightnings, Y Flyers, E Scows, and Flying Scots. Races for
these boats are held every Sunday.

While
Carlyle is the largest, most organized sailing program outside of Chicago and
Lake Michigan, there are other sailing clubs scattered throughout the state.
For example, in Springfield, the Island Bay Yacht Club was established in 1935.
Island Bay has a fleet of C Scows, JY15s, Lasers and Star boats. This club has
more than 500 members.

On
the other end of the spectrum, the Prestbury Yacht Club is a community sailing
club located on a small, neighborhood lake, west of Naperville. Their racing
program includes lasers and JY15s.

In
the east-central part of the state, the Clinton Lake Sailing Association has
had an active racing program for 25 years. The club holds races every weekend;
Flying Scots, which are the only active one-design fleet at the club, also race
on Wednesday evenings, and there are several Laser regattas scattered
throughout the summer.

Valley Sailing Association was founded in 1954 on a
mile-wide stretch of the Mississippi River called Alton Lake. With active
fleets of Comets, Lasers, Lightnings and Mutineers, the club holds races on
Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons.

Sailing often becomes a passion for those who try it
and it is not uncommon for people to own more than one kind of boat: one for
sailing alone; one for racing with their family or other crew; a third to teach
their children; and a fourth because it was so pretty they could not resist.
It’s like some women and their shoes. For example, Laffey, who is the true
commodore of the Valley Sailing Association, owns a whopping 14 boats,
including one Comet, one Sunfish and six wooden Lightnings. In some clubs, if
you have one boat, you are a mere skipper, but once you have more than three,
your fellow club members might start calling you commodore, with tongue pressed
firmly in cheek. In Laffey’s case, his friends jokingly call him Lord Admiral
(as in Admiral Nelson of the British Navy).